Sarah Palin spoiled the media. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say she spoiled the public, who spoiled the media with their patronage whenever they covered her. In either case, the woman was endlessly fascinating. From that line in her 2008 RNC convention speech about not seeking the media’s good opinion, she assumed a fighting stance that could turn into plain insolence. When Joe Biden heard her ask him if she could call him Joe, he must have harumphed to... Read more
In yesterday’s Atlantic, Joshua Green reports that the Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church, which Michelle Bachmann attended for many years, teaches that the papacy is the Antichrist. Let me be the first to say, “Whatever.” The doctrine isn’t nearly as threatening as it sounds. To Green’s credit, he took the trouble to call synod communications director Joel Hochmuth, who explained it in fairly palatable terms: “Some people have this vision of a little devil running around with horns and red pointy... Read more
What do you do when both sides are tossing rhetorical bombs? Aside from ducking, the only thing is to try to defuse them. The best way to do that is to try to demonstrate how little relation each side’s words bear to reality.. Last week, in National Review Online, George Weigel accused Washington Post columnist Phillip Kennicott of lobbing an undeserved h-bomb — that is, an accusation of homophobia. Kennicott himself claims to be responding to a double-C bomb, or... Read more
“If you’ve spent any time thinking about a chivalric order lately…” With these words do Happy Menocal and John Swansburg open their Slate piece on Malta and its guardian knights. Surely it wasn’t meant to, but the phrasing makes me think of an ad for a private school. All too easily, I can imagine the parents of my old neighborhood telling each other, “Dustin’s a shoo-in for the Order of the Bath, but we’ve gotten him on the waiting list... Read more
What a prince Bill Keller is. In reviewing John Julius Norwich’s Absolute Monarchs, he warns that this “rollicking narrative” featuring “265 popes (plus various usurpers and antipopes), feral hordes of Vandals, Huns and Visigoths, expansionist emperors, Byzantine intriguers, Borgias and Medicis, heretic zealots, conspiring clerics, bestial inquisitors and more” might not appeal to “devout Catholics.” It’s a nice little warning label: The following history contains scenes that might shock or upset readers. Not recommended for expectant mothers or members of... Read more
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I wrote a crapload today. If I found the English language in a dark alley, I’d beat the living daylights out of it. Here’s a silly cartoon instead: Read more
Yesterday, a friend and I were talking about a columnist whose work she esteems to a point, but which I find insufferable. If I’m being fair, I have to admit that this person has a lot to recommend him. He oozes integrity and wears diligence and passion like a set of (tastefully understated) cufflinks. If it served his ideology, he’d lock his ego in a chastity belt — on that I would bet my very space bar. Someone once said... Read more
Yesterday, I noted approvingly that Fr. Gerard Sheehan, Fr. John Corapi’s SOLT superior, condemned Corapi in fairly plain English, rather than in the sort of obfuscatory Church-speak that once made John Allen, Jr. liken l’Osservatore Romano to Pravda. It seems to be contagious. Today, Corapi issued his rebuttal. No longer is he talking in terms of cabals against his human rights, or of plans to feed entire worlds. Instead, he sticks to contracts and money. Regarding my personal financial situation—From... Read more
A word to the wise: don’t ask NCR’s Michael Sean Winters if he’s been keeping up with the Casey Anthony case. He’ll probably tell you something along these lines: I refused to watch a single moment of the Casey Anthony trial. I refused to watch a single news story about the trial. This took some doing and I had to replace the battery in my television clicker sooner than anticipated. The story was ubiquitous. I refused to engage it for... Read more
“It’s not a fight, honey. It’s a disagreement.” Have you ever spoken thus to your kid when she caught you and your spouse circling each other with butcher knives? If so, you should consider drafting official statements for the Church. When it comes to conflict resolution, no one’s jargon is gummier or windier. Pope Benedict didn’t sack Marcial Maciel; he invited him to a life or prayer and penitence. Superiors don’t order their subordinates to shape up or ship out;... Read more
Diary of a Wimpy Catholic
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